Behavioral

I have a couple expensive pairs of Cole Haans (oxford and monk strap) and a couple of other 'designer' shoes, but in terms of comfort, nothing's beaten my Clarks. I typically don't wear my Clarks out on special occasion, but they were the only ones I would wear when I was still a wedding photographer trying to get through college (walking in dress shoes for anywhere from 6-12 hours, anyone?). I'm now a retired photographer, but I just bought a second pair of oxfords from Clark for the same reason as you--I like to dress well when in public, and if I'm at school/lab for 14 hours, I want something that fits the part and is comfortable.

Nice idea. Headed to Evanston in the Fall and wanted to pick up a mountain bike for some winter riding. This is a great idea. Thanks!

You two nuts would love Ethiopian coffee, then; it's perhaps the most acidic/bitter and harshest coffees I've had to date. When I first started drinking coffee, I thought it was supposed to taste that way--then I discovered a quality coffee shop who knew how to roast their beans correctly.

Ideally behind bullet-proof glass

I buy most of my equipment used (coffeegeek.com, craigslist, eBay, etc.), so I usually pay a lot less than MSRP and I also usually get most of my money back when I sell them--that's why the steep prices aren't too bad considering the used market makes the investments fairly liquid as long as they're in good working condition. Also, with proper equipment and knowledge of how to pull shots correctly (along with steaming milk), the drinks you make yourself at home will be of much higher quality than many commercial cafés (of course there are some baristas and many notable smaller coffee shops offering great coffee). Also, with a home setup, you can begin to taste and choose your favorite coffees and coffee blends and experiment; sweetmarias.com is a great site (with helpful descriptions) to buy green coffee from. Current: Espresso Machine: Nuova Simonella Appia 5.3qt (downgrading to smaller capacity) - ~$4,000 Press Coffee: Aerobie AeroPress (for the office/lab) - ~$25 Burr Grinder: Capresso Infinity (don't really recommend this; not enough clicks) - ~$90 Roaster: Behmor 1600 (too big; downgrading to smaller capacity) - ~$300 Coffee: Many, but favorite is Sweet Maria's Liquid Amber (really subtle, but complex flavors; amazing crema) - ~$6/lb (green bean, meaning you need to roast this yourself) This fall: Espresso Machine: Rancilio Silvia (had an older one that held me over for a year; great machine) - $650 Press Coffee: Aerobie AeroPress (for the office/lab) - ~$25 Burr Grinder: Capresso Infinity (don't really recommend this; not enough clicks) - ~$90 Roaster: Fresh Roast SR500 (fairly positive reviews on coffeegeek.com) - ~$150 Coffee: Many, but favorite is Sweet Maria's Liquid Amber (really subtle, but complex flavors; amazing crema) - ~$6/lb (green bean, meaning you need to roast this yourself)

Definitely going to replace it once I'm in Evanston. Luckily I don't think I'm going to lose much of my investment with this machine since I actually got a great deal on it ($900 for a normally ~$4000 machine) from a small coffee shop going out of business near my apartment. I actually held some coffee and food pairings at my apartment as an undergrad with a lot of my friends, and that's why I bought a commercial machine. I plan to get a personal--rather than a commercial--espresso machine next year since I don't plan on having enough time to host coffee/espresso tastings anymore. If I could find a used Rancilio Silvia in good shape. I had one before I got the Appia and loved it -- the water capacity was just much too low to be able to continuously keep pulling shot after shot in a night; for personal use, however, the Rancilio is great.

Don't think anyone here really tops my caffeine addiction: Pulled from a Nuova Simonella Appia 5.3qt and jimmied the sewage into our sink for easy cleaning Really sad I have to sell it since I'm moving across the country for grad school, and this thing weighs a ton

Don't buy a fixer-upper if it's your first bike. You learn from incidental repair--not from learning from the ground up. Easiest fix - flat front tire tube Most difficult - for me, adjusting my gears after a fall/crash Cheapest - new tube Most expensive - damaged frame (structural; i.e., dented carbon fiber; rust on steel; etc.) For brakes, depends what kind and why it's malfunctioning. But once again, avoid fixer-uppers. You're going to kill yourself on the road since you don't know what you're doing.

For the schools I visited (before actually applying to them), I had my professor email some of his friends and colleagues to see if they were free; if they were, I'd get in contact with them. These schools were ones within driving distance from my home. The rest, I felt there was no point (given the cost of travel) unless I was already accepted.

I still want to see hard evidence (i.e., placement records) over the years for Quant Psychologists. The claim made by the ASU professor quoted in the article doesn't quite convince me ("ASU has five PhDs graduating this year in quantitative psychology and all five already have wonderful jobs that they got quickly," says Aiken.) -- I want to know what the actual five jobs are. Most people who are going into Quant Psych, I would imagine, still want to be academics; working for a textbook publishing company isn't quite the romantic job one would hope for with a Ph.D.

It would look like CV padding (to me at least) if someone were to include those items.

I'll try to make it short: Essentially while in REM sleep, your body goes into sleep paralysis. When you're in Alpha/Beta, your body isn't. The way this app works is that you place your phone next to your pillow, and the accelarometers that are inside phones are sensitive to your body movements, which subsequently move your bed. Your phone keep track of this. You create a buffer duration from your alarm and that's the window where your phone can sound off the alarm (i.e., you set a time for an alarm, and the buffer creates a window from the alarm time and the #minutes/hours before the alarm; it doesn't create a window AFTER the alarm, because then you'll wake up late). The alarm goes off when you're in Alpha/Beta sleep if it falls within your timing window--otherwise, if the window is too small (i.e., you made the buffer only 10 minutes, but a REM cycle can be 45-90 minutes), then it'll wake you up closest to optimal. Hope that makes sense? I made my buffer 2 hours (yes, that means even though I make my alarm 8am typically, sometimes it wakes me up closer to 6; though since I wake up at 8am almost everyday, my body's gotten used to waking up at the time after habitual practice), so I almost always wake up refreshed, even when I get less-than-optimal amount of sleep.

I was an iPhone user for 3 years (had the original 2G, 3G, and 3GS) and I recently made the switch to Android 1.5 months ago to the Samsung Infuse (review found http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/13/samsung-infuse-4g-review/) The increased speed due to the HSPA+ "4g" connection is such a big improvement over the iPhone. I do way too much on my phone (I actually never really play games either!) to ever go back to a 'dumb'phone. I check my multiple email accounts in one place, talk/text as needed, and have numerous productivity apps (smart alarm to wake me up after REM sleep, RTM as a to-do list, Yelp for when I need to eat something after spending all day in lab, EasyTetherPro to tether internet to my laptop when there's no Wi-Fi, Google Maps, and Mint.com to keep track of finances (all of them: two checking accounts, one credit card, one b&m savings account, one online savings account, and Paypal) all in one place. It's also cannibalized a lot of my other media players' functions--I no longer use dedicated mp3 players because of this (the fact that you can download mp3s at will for free using a free app that's in the Android store is amazing), nor do I have to rely on the horrible iTunes app to add/remove songs; with a 4" screen (I believe the iPhones is around 3.4"), I can feasibly stream movies on Netflix without squinting; and when necessary, I just use my phone instead of my Kindle or iPad to read books using iBooks or some other PDFreader. All this along with the fact that battery endurance is actually great (due to a single processor 1.2GHz Snapdragon instead of ones like the dual-process Tigra2 that's on the ATRIX4G)--enough that I don't have a dead phone with a full day's worth of use, including surfing online all day, watch the occasional Youtube vid, and having my display on most of the day. Recently on a trip when I noticed I forgot my phone charger, I never used my handset except to pick up or make calls, and it lasted me a little over 3 days with no charge (though battery was on red). That's enough of my spiel.

As a former wedding photographer with somewhere around 14-16TB worth of drives on various RAIDs, I really only trust WD and Samsung. Seagates are great if you're storing things that aren't important since their price point is great for the consumer market. Toshiba--haven't heard much from them nor have I ever bought their products. WD Black and Blue drives are a bit more expensive, but I've been really happy with their performance and stability over the years.

This link has a few of the board's most respected and long-time posters saying that modern computers have battery controllers that prevent overcharging; most of the technical talk involving Li-on batteries may be a bit moot if the assertion of the modern battery controllers is, in fact, true: http://forum.noteboo...100-unplug.html And a technical link about charging Li-on batteries, cycles, proper charge/discharge, etc. can be found here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries

For the love of mercy, buy refurb from Apple if you're going MBP http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac/macbook_pro?afid=p201|552179&cid=AOS-US-AFFC Same computer, probably better product overall due to increased factory QC, and still covered by AppleCare for a year (like new models), but for cheaper.

Yup, there are actual Kindle apps supported by Amazon for each platform/media device. There are also third-party handlers if that's more akin to your liking.

Definitely a fan of bikesdirect. Rode a Motobecane Vent Noir for many years before upgrading to an older used Felt F5 with all Campy components. The bikesdirect bikes come almost fully assembled, and they have video tutorials on their site on how to assemble it (it's really just pedals, wheels, and the stem/bars). They're a great value and can easily handle high mileage (I rode a couple half centuries on the Motobecane and would put in 40-60 miles/week pretty consistently when I was riding at my peak). The bikes are around $500+ for ones with decent components (Shimano 105 and better), but they're comparable to bikes in the $1000+ range like some of the entry level Treks.

I guess I'm the only one here who seems to like briefcases http://www.amazon.com/Samsonite-Classic-Three-Gusset-Toploader/dp/B004CEVIVU I have a bevy of backpacks, too, for different occasions (casual, hiking, biking), but the one I reach for most often is http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002N4YB1U/ I'm a sucker for (good) Samsonite products

I've always been a fan of Lenovo S-series netbooks. And as for me, my school made it easy on me since incoming doctoral students get a free laptop upon entering: Lenovo T420 i7 or T420s i5. Opting for the heavier, beefier T420 to hold me over for 2-3 years at least.

They exist, though I feel their overt behaviors are replaced by snarky and sarcastic remarks (which still elicits the same laughter from me).

Now you I like.

Hey! If you need a place to crash for a few days near the end of the month, you can stay at my place. It will be largely unfurnished since I'm just moving in, but I think I'll have a Queen-sized airbed by then at least. PM me if interested!

Should be perfectly fine. Your success reflects well on your advisors, so it's in their best interest to help you out--as long as it's not TOO inconvenient. E-mails are perfectly fine as long as you try to keep them short and easy to read.